Old subway cars become fish habitat
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Get off at Atlantic
Did we know they were deep-sixing old New York City subway cars off New Jersey? Sounds like one more instance of New York dumping on Jersey or at the very least a gross example of littering. But it's legit; environmentally sound, in fact. New Jersey's sea floor is like a desert, with many concrete-shod Mafiosi and the usual gantlet of toll booths but few aquatic formations to draw fish and crustaceans. So, if nature isn't going to supply a reef, New York Transit will -- 250 cars at five sites along the Atlantic coast, all from the old IRT line, if you're scoring at home.
One question for the artificial reef/transit community: Are there "blind" fish going from car to car staring down other fish for "spare change"?
Reef madness
It turns out artificial reef programs are widespread. We learned from The Washington Post, for example, that Lake Erie contains faux reefs made of rubble from Cleveland Stadium. (Yes, there's Browns junk down there, but let's not hold it against Lake Erie.) Texas recycles its petroleum platforms as reefs. In May, the 888-foot USS Oriskany, a retired aircraft carrier, was sunk 24 miles off Florida's Pensacola Beach in the Gulf of Mexico, creating the world's largest artificial reef.
New Jersey is third behind Florida and South Carolina in the artificial-reef rankings. Since the program's start in 1984, 140 ships have been deployed in the Jersey deep along with Army tanks, reef balls (concrete fish habitats), tires and, of course, subway cars. For the environment's sake, all foreign objects are scrubbed clean, and toxic or dangerous elements removed.
One more question: Wouldn't it only be humane to also detoxify the subway cars still being used in New York?
Jersey girl
Amy Lame, a comedian and star radio host in England, was born in 1971 in New Jersey. Since The Morning File has Jersey roots we run all observations about the highly chemical Garden State. The Scotsman gives us Amy's theory about her birthplace: "I think New Jersey is like this breeding ground for complicated people. Nutty people. I'm always intrigued by the creative people from New Jersey, and what it means to come out of there. I want to know what it is that drives people from this particular area known as the armpit of America to escape and move on. I don't know if there's something in the water."
Now we know: There is indeed something in the water.
Fish prefer artificial retirement
The Miami Herald reported on a study comparing coral reefs and artificial reefs -- in this case, six shipwrecks -- as fish habitats. Marine biologists found fish thriving on both. But there were species inhabiting artificial reefs that were absent from adjacent natural structures. For example, the scientists found few adult blackfin snapper, amberjack and grouper on the natural bottom, but plenty on the deep shipwrecks. The conclusion: The fish may be using the shallow natural water habitats as a nursery and then moving to the deep-water artificial habitats for their golden years.
'Oh, you said grouper'
You have to ask how sure these researchers were that the grouper they saw were really grouper. That is, if they ate out a lot. A St. Petersburg Times survey of 11 Tampa Bay area restaurants featuring grouper found that six served a cheaper fish instead. One charged $23 for "champagne braised black grouper" that actually was dirt-cheap tilapia. Four other fakes were European hake, an Asian catfish and an unidentified fish that definitely wasn't a grouper. A sixth could not be identified, but the restaurant owner confessed it was an Alaskan pollack.
From wholesalers to retailers, fish substitution is so prevalent that it may be unstoppable, a representative of domestic fish suppliers told The Times. Last Friday in Panama City, Fla., two companies pleaded guilty to conspiring to import and sell more than a million pounds of Vietnamese catfish mislabeled as grouper and other wild-caught species from the United States and Canada.
In 2004, a University of North Carolina study found that more than three in four fish tested and sold as red snapper in eight states were actually other species. And a federal government study found that 80 percent of all red snappers were mislabeled between 1988 and 1997.
Farm-raised salmon scam
Which brings up the musical question: "How ya gonna keep the salmon down on the farm after they've seen Juneau?" This month's Consumer Reports tells us that salmon labeled "wild" may actually be farmed-raised. CR bought 23 supposedly "wild" salmon filets last November, December and March -- the off-season for wild-caught salmon -- and found that only 10 of the 23 were definitely caught in the wild. The rest were raised on a farm.
Typically, wild salmon costs more. CR paid an average of $6.31 a pound for salmon labeled as farmed (all of which was indeed farmed) compared with $12.80 for correctly labeled wild salmon. The most costly of the bunch was farmed salmon labeled as wild, with an average price of $15.62 a pound.
How do you tell if your salmon is farm-raised or wild? The magazine recommend two ways. First, if it's from Alaska it's probably wild, since Alaska doesn't allow salmon farming. Also, CR's expert tasters noted that wild salmon has a stronger flavor and firmer flesh than farmed.
No word on whether any of the wild salmon was disguised as grouper.
First Published August 17, 2006 12:00 am
